


caliology

by lady_peony



Category: Persona 5
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Domesticity, Established Relationship, Fluff, M/M, Persona 5 Royal based, Post-Canon, Winter, the plant is a mettyfor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-11 02:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28247865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_peony/pseuds/lady_peony
Summary: "Show me what you were looking at," Goro says. The wood of the bench creaks slightly beneath his feet as he steps onto it, putting him at about equal height with Akira.He's glad that there's few people in the park at this hour of the day, most of the crowds hurrying instead through Inokashira Park, winding their way towards lit-up food stalls and gold-windowed restaurants.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Comments: 16
Kudos: 121
Collections: 21 plus akeshuake server yuletide 2020 event





	caliology

**Author's Note:**

> +no warnings really needed for this one i think
> 
> +didn't start writing this until...the beginning of this month...20 days?? whatever, bon appetit u all
> 
> +For 21+ akeshuake server yuletide prompt day #9: mistletoe

"Akira," Goro calls, one hand already reaching out automatically towards the figure in front of him.

Akira half-turns from his spot standing atop the park bench, his feet on tiptoe. Snow dusts his glasses, the crown of his head. His blue scarf, which had twisted and turned in the wind during their stroll, is nearly falling off his shoulders.

Goro makes a tsking sound with his tongue. "Bend down," he says, his words crisp.

Akira does, lowering one knee and tipping his head forward, posture docile.

Goro catches the dangling ends of Akira's scarf with his fingertips, loops them around his neck with precise attentiveness, and knots the ends together. "How can you even see whatever you were looking at with your glasses like that?"

As Goro speaks, puffs of his breath brush up against the glasses, melting away some of the frost clouding it. Akira's eyes behind them shine—shifting shades of starlight, close enough to touch.

Goro breathes out, and moves his hands away from the knot of Akira's scarf. Akira turns back around, bumping a shoulder gently against Goro.   
  
"Up there," Akira says, his phone glowing between his fingers as he gestures upwards. "I think Yusuke would have liked to see a picture of it. I just wanted to send it off in the group chat."

Goro should have been more surprised, he thinks, that Akira had spotted something that high up, with the dark curtain of the winter night hanging over everything, draping all shapes in a soft blue-black glow save for where it was punctuated by narrow streetlight stripes. 

"Ok. Fine." Goro puts down the bags in his hand on a free side of the bench, and taps his fists lightly against his knees. 

Was this what getting old felt like? His knees give off a twinge as he straightens up, the joints of his fingers a little stiff as he bends them in his gloves. 

All right, all right—he'll remember to pick up more vitamins the next time he and Akira swing by a 777.

"Show me what you were looking at," Goro says. The wood of the bench creaks slightly beneath his feet as he steps onto it, putting him at about equal height with Akira.

He's glad that there's few people in the park at this hour of the day, most of the crowds hurrying instead through Inokashira Park, winding their way towards lit-up food stalls and gold-windowed restaurants. 

Here he is, with Akira, staring up towards the top of a tree like a pair of children searching for a lost kite. 

"Mistletoe," Akira says, his hand pointing. His expression has a nearly childish delight to it.

Looking up, it reminds Goro of a ball of moss he had seen once on television but blooming a hundred times larger, a spherical leafy crown atop the branches of the tree, pale berries caught between its leaves like pearls. 

"You know," Goro says, "if you're sending that picture to Yusuke for his winter paintings, you should remind him that the berries on the plant are not meant to be eaten. They tend to be toxic, after all."

Akira grins. "I'll tell him. Or I'll just remind Futaba to drop off his share of their senbei-Pretz-chocolates snack stash early before their next Inari-Oracle Extreme team-up day."

Goro half-turns, his shoulder bumping into Akira's. "Didn't Futaba have a longer name for their project days?"

Akira pulls a face, the look rueful but affectionate. "She did. She tried to order t-shirts with that name last time they met up, but they both fell asleep after she finished her extracurricular side project, and Yusuke completed that new sculpture he had been working on for a month."

Futaba had been flitting between programs at Tokodai for almost a year now, while Yusuke was still as art-obsessed as he ever had been.

Akira himself was finishing up a program at Waseda, with an eye towards journalism or civil service, even. 

And well—there was always Leblanc, as Sakura-san would bring up on occasion, when Akira or Goro would drop by. 

Speaking of Leblanc—Goro should remind Akira that they should head back soon. True, the groceries from MealPort that Goro had been carrying wouldn't spoil so easily in this cold, but he _was_ getting hungry—hot pot and drinks at Leblanc sounded like a more attractive proposition by the minute—

Though the words rest just on the tip of his tongue, as Goro turns to look at Akira—

Even all these years later—had it been five, or six?—there's still something undeniably electric that pulls Goro's glance towards Akira, something quiet and strange and lovely in those familiar features, despite Akira's seemingly magical ability to tuck himself away into a crowd. 

Akira's chin is tipped up, lashes half-lowered as his eyes fix contemplatively towards the mistletoe above him. A hint of chestnuts uncurls from Akira's breath as he lets out of a breath, a wisp of warmth from it brushing past Goro's cheek.

Akira had bought the bag of roasted chestnuts from one of the many snack stands around Kichijoji, right after they had bought the extra hot pot supplies. He had offered the first peeled one from his fingertips to Goro's lips—the slightly sweet, starchy taste of it crunched pleasantly between Goro's teeth as he bit down.

Goro had grumbled some about Akira not helping him carry the bags. Akira had pointed out he had his hands full peeling the chestnuts. 

"Peel faster," Goro had said, and Akira had pitched a shelled chestnut at him. 

Goro had basked in the look on Akira's face when he caught it right on his tongue. 

Simple physics, that was all. It wasn't any harder than judging the distance between a billiard ball and a pocket, or the number of moves between a rook and a king. 

"There's a story about Loki," Akira says, seemingly apropos of nothing. His eyes drop from the mistletoe to flicker a sideways glance at Goro, catching his gaze and holding it.

"There are many stories about Loki," Goro says.

These days, Goro's anger no longer guts him. No longer feels like the tip of a blade digging in, dragging a stinging line from the hollow of his throat to his innards.

It doesn't mean he's forgotten how it felt—the fury that burned so bright it seared, the bitter ice that splintered and reformed and splintered with every scraping word he ever dredged up from his throat— 

"They say in this tale," Akira says, his voice soft and even, a thread that Goro can catch onto, "Baldr's mother, the goddess Frigga, once made everything in existence swear not to harm Baldr. She received such oaths from everything except for mistletoe—some say she had forgotten about it, others believed she thought it was too small to do much harm." Akira's gloved fingers lift, running idly down a groove in the tree trunk before him. "Later, when Baldr was grown, the gods were entertaining themselves at a party by throwing their weapons at him and seeing their weapons miss and miss and miss him again, leaving him whole and uninjured."

"So where does Loki come in then?" Goro doesn't look away from Akira's eyes, from the drop of snowmelt slinking its way off the tip of a curl, sloping down the pale curve of his cheek.

"So Loki," Akira continues, "knowing about Baldr's weakness, fashioned arrows from mistletoe, and asked a certain god, Höðr, to shoot them. And thus—" a motion of his hands, a sharp downwards swoop like a dropped curtain "—Baldr falls." 

"Arrows of mistletoe, hmm? And so a mere plant becomes a symbol of death, for a god who was invincible to all else," Goro says. He imagines the arrow, being made—seeking out the mistletoe tree, picking the slender stick of wood, stripping off the extraneous bark and sanding it down, one end sharpened to a killing point. "I suppose Loki was meted out sufficient punishment for his deeds?"

"Yes." Akira drops his gaze from Goro, to look back up at the mistletoe. One of his hands reaches out, palm open, to tap lightly against the trunk of the tree. "But then—Loki wasn't the one who set the rules of the game."

There's a hint of heat there, beneath his words. A whisper of white phosphorus in the tip of a match before it is struck, or a river current roiling beneath a fragile cover of ice—power just barely contained.

"No," Goro agrees. "He was more the sort to enjoy breaking games than making them." 

More details of the relevant tale drift back to him, in slow bubbles to the top of his mind—the death of one of the most-admired Norse gods, the first domino tipped by Loki towards destruction— _ah_. This must have been from the mythology book Akira had been in the middle of reading a couple days ago, from the pile near the nightstand, stacked in between a manga lent by Ryuji and a magazine forwarded from Ann and his Waseda schoolbooks. 

Goro even had time now sometimes to read whatever caught his fancy, instead of coordinating bullet-pointed lists of factoids for schoolwork or scanning for a well-turned phrase to bring a little glitter to interviews as he once did. It was a luxury that didn't go unappreciated by Goro. 

"If you think about it too much," Akira goes on, "it was probably more than a little stupid to participate in a game in the first place where others chuck weapons at you, and not consider the possibility that you could get hurt." 

"Surprising to hear," Goro says, "from someone who doesn't seem to enjoy games without a little risk. Isn't that right, Akira?"

"There's nothing wrong with a little healthy competition in games." Akira curls his hand briefly behind his neck, rolls it once. "Though nobody expected Futaba to be quite that tyrannical the last time we played Tycoon—the other students at Tokodai are a scary bunch when it comes to their games, it seems. Besides—" Akira slides a slow glance towards Goro from beneath his lashes, "—for me, I think it's less about the risk and more about the rival across from me."

Goro bites his lip, wills his smile to sharpen into a smirk. If he does blush, and if Akira does call him out on it, he can simply blame it on the cold temperature. 

Goro bounces once slightly on his heels, the wooden slats beneath them creaking with the pressure, and leaps backwards to land on the snowy ground with a crunch.

"Come, Akira," Goro says. "The others will be waiting, won't they?"

Akira turns, the hem of his gray coat flapping, and makes to leap down—

"Oof—!"

Goro doesn't know what it was—a stray patch of frost on the bench, or a spot of snow falling into Akira's eyes at the wrong moment--but Akira had stumbled, and Goro manages to catch him by the elbow to steady him, like a gentleman.

"Careful—!" Goro says, through gritted teeth, his grip creasing wrinkles into the underside of Akira's sleeve, until Akira is standing upright again. "Really, now—as much as your doctor loves her job, I don't think she would appreciate having to treat you for a concussion this close to New Year's festivities."   
  
"I resent that accusation," Akira says, smiling, his mouth temptingly present in front of Goro's. "I have—what is it they say in English?—reflexes like a cat."

"I've seen Morgana crash off Leblanc's bar stool the last time you brought him sushi after our Ginza visit."

Akira makes a brief noise of disagreement.

"And all this to capture a picture of a plant, on top of that—Sakura-san would have my head, if I didn't keep you to just half your usual antics."

"Mistletoe is a seasonally-appropriate plant, in my defense." Akira tucks his chin over Goro's shoulder, leaning close in against him—like he was shaking off weakness in his legs from his near-fall. 

If he's honest—and he is more honest now, which has surprisingly come with the perspective of being almost twenty four over eighteen—Goro doesn't really mind the feeling.

"If it has to live off trees, doesn't that make mistletoe a parasitic plant?" Goro edges his way closer to the bench with Akira half-hanging off him, and reaches out his hands for the bags he had set down there. "Isn't that a little sad?"

"Hemiparasitic," Akira corrects him, from just behind his right ear. "They can produce a little food and oxygen on their own when they have to. But—how does that make it sad? It's not a weakness to need others."

Goro wrinkles his brow, shakes his shoulder a little to dislodge Akira. "We are still talking about a plant, yes?" 

Akira slides off his back obligingly enough. 

"Well," Akira says, pulling up the collar of his coat, "Haru told me once that some birds depend on it for their nests and food in winter, when all else is ice and snow. Some other animals do too. If it's in a place where it belongs—" Akira steps in even closer, his voice softening, "—it can do a lot of good."

"Ah." Goro coughs, crinkling the grocery bags extra loudly as he lifts them, testing the weight of them at his fingertips. "All right. What other wholly extraneous information have you picked up on it then?"

"Oh? About mistletoe? There's also a curious tradition in the West—," Akira starts, his lips curling up. He slides another half step closer to Goro, his glance a little arch, a little meaningful—

Goro would have wanted to wait longer, see how much more pleading Akira's face could get while looking at Goro—

"Later," Goro breathes out, at the very moment when all it would take would be a mere tiptoe for Akira's lips to meet Goro's. 

He doesn't mean to be cruel, truly, but well. They are in public. 

He would prefer it if they were in Leblanc. Or even better—if they were in their apartment where's it's warm, in their rooms with the chess set missing a pawn that Morgana had accidentally batted under the fridge and Akira's stacks of books and Goro's meticulously tidy closet, back where there's a proper bed for their other activities. 

"You didn't let me finish," Akira says. The pout in his eyes makes Goro half-consider relenting.

"Did you really memorize all those mistletoe facts just to impress anyone you happened to speak with?" Goro lets his voice go light, amused. 

"To impress you, maybe," Akira says, grumbling.

Goro hums a little at that, doesn't open his mouth to say that he finds Akira's face just then stupidly endearing.

Though he didn't allow the kiss, Goro does stop in the snow with the bags in his hands instead of walking on ahead, giving Akira time to slip his arm into the crook of Goro's left elbow. 

Walking like this, side-by-side in the Tokyo crowds with the warmth of their elbows curled around each other, is fine.

"You're certain we haven't missed anything on the food list?" Goro asks, mentally tracing the most efficient train line to take them from Kichijoji back to Yongen-Jaya.

"That should be everything," Akira confirms. "Haru is dropping off cake when she comes by the next day, which will save us from having to line up for one. She's testing three new kinds on all of us—" Akira squints down at his phone in hand, presumably rereading a text, "—a chestnut mousse cream, a brandy-blackberry one, and a yuzu and cherry jam roll."

Goro lifts the bags in his hands, considering the weight of the vegetables. "Who's showing for the first hotpot night?"

"Tonight? Ann, Sumire, Futaba, and Yusuke," Akira says, rattling off the names easily. "The day after—Makoto, Haru, Ryuji, and Yusuke. And the last gathering—Ryuji, Haru, Futaba, maybe Ann if her photoshoot finishes quickly, and—"

"And Yusuke?" 

"You know what he's like," Akira says, with a casual roll of his shoulders. "It's Yusuke and free food. It's one of his weaknesses." A pause. "Less so because he can't afford to keep his kitchen stocked nowadays, but more because the art supplies he's using for the level he is at now—" A low whistle, a little disbelieving. "You should have seen his bill the last time he went into an art shop at Jinchobo with us." 

"A weakness, hmm?"

"Yes." Akira's lips tilt up, and he adds on, "I wonder what's yours?"

Goro huffs out a breath, and replies, his tone somewhat tart, "Was I really so poor at teaching you my detective skills all those years ago that you can't figure it out?" 

Goro would hate to admit it, but he doesn't mind that much, really, that Akira gets a little clingy on occasion, like when they're walking together now. 

It's no hardship, to feel the warmth of Akira next to him, arm in arm, to get to study small changes of Akira's expressions to his heart's content, to curl around him with a kiss whenever he wishes, to feel the steady beat of Akira's pulse beneath his fingertips when they absentmindly lace their hands together while watching whatever late-night drama happens to be airing at the time.

In these passing years, Goro has learned something of greed, and Akira has learned something of selfishness. It's not a bad change, not for either of them.

Now, Goro watches Akira furrow his brow, a thoughtful air to the frown touching his lips. "A detective does need clues, Goro—one can't make bricks without clay."

If Goro didn't have his hands full with bags, he would have been tempted to reach up and smooth a thumb over the dip between Akira's eyebrows, or tug teasingly at that one curl of hair over Akira's forehead. 

As they walk closer to the train station, they fall easily into a comfortable argument about the Christmas markets they might visit in the next couple days. 

There were pros and cons for different ones, depending on when Goro would finish his job's shift, or how many of the ex-Phantom Thieves would be joining them on their outing—should they head for Shiba Park, or the one in nearby Roppongi? Or the farthest one by the Skytree? 

As they wait by a street crossing, Akira runs a hand over Goro's left shoulder. "There were some twigs," Akira says as explanation, when Goro shoots him a look.

But Akira does it again a second time, the motion somehow confused.

He pulls his hand away. "Wait. Where's Morgana?"

"Shouldn't he be just right here—" Goro says. 

Wait.

_Oh no._

Okay, okay. Goro can handle this.

Backtrack. 

Where they had been last was—

Morgana had been with them at the apartment that morning, for one of his visits. He still fit perfectly snugly in Akira's ancient schoolbag, to Goro's express surprise. Akira had been carrying Morgana as usual when they all had been strolling around Kichijoji, until the text from Sakura-san requesting that they pick up a few more vegetables for the hotpot dinner, since Akira was technically the host.

So they had stopped by MealPort. At one point, Akira had made to settle Morgana into the front basket of the shopping cart, to leave his hands free to examine the produce.

"I'm not a cabbage!" Morgana had squawked, when Akira had tried to lower him down. 

This resulted in Goro carrying Morgana down the aisles of meat and vegetables. They had watched Akira pick up crisp heads of napa cabbage, enoki mushrooms, green onions, udon noodle packs, and extra potatoes and carrots for curry, stacking each item into the cart with methodical care.

Then they had all made their way to the checkout—and Akira bought the chestnuts from a stand outside—and then—

"You forgot _Morgana_?" Akira asks again. It might have been the wind that whipped up just then around their heads, but the look on Akira's face was getting dangerously teary-eyed.

"I—he's not a normal cat! It's not like he's totally incapable of finding his way around." 

"That's true but—he's gotten older now, and it's cold out—"

Goro breathes in. Out. 

In. Out. 

"We'll find him." If they couldn't, Akira's mood would turn downcast—not to mention it would be a waste of the annual Shinkansen pet pass that Goro had just renewed early this month for Morgana. He jerks his head back towards Kichijoji's entrance. "Come on, Joker." 

Morgana still whines at them both about forgetting him an hour later, after they've finally picked him up and are gathered around one of the tables in Leblanc, waiting for the dashi broth in the hot pot to simmer.

* * *

  
And even later, when they and the ex-Phantom Thieves have eaten their fill, and had drank (a little, just a cup or two of sake for him and Akira), and talked (a lot), and Akira had finished washing up the bowls and implements (with Goro helping), they had both made their way slowly, slowly to the train again, ensconced themselves back in their single apartment bed.

Akira had chosen to skim through one of the tourist-type magazines he had by the bed, though he did yawn between every other page on the hottest winter date spots.

Goro hadn't decided to read anything in particular, was more lounging beneath the warmth of their blanket, listening to the late evening snowfall whisper down the windows, drawing veils of frost. 

He blinks slowly now, watching lamplight and shadow swim over the covers on his knees. Dualities.  
  
His thoughts circled, slow and easy. 

Mirrors. Vanity and deception, uncorrupted light and truth.

Shooting stars. Omens of disaster, destruction, or carriers of human wishes. 

The mistletoe—something that some would consider a poison and a bane, others saw as—

Soft breaths drift to Goro's ears, different from the sound of gently-falling snow. 

Goro looks downwards.

Akira's head is nodding, the magazine he had been holding nearly slipping from his fingers.

Goro takes the magazine, takes the glasses. Puts both away, and tugs Akira down, until he is lying on his back in the bed, head settled on a pillow.

Between them, Goro wonders—who is the mistletoe, and who is the tree? 

Perhaps he is the tree, and not Akira—Akira whose roots have grown around him, around his heart, until their attachment was undeniable. 

And Goro had simply stayed in place, and let him, instead of running, running, running, as he once might have.

He looks once more at Akira's face, his closed eyes and even breaths, and curls in this moment to a memory, allows it to settle in his chest like a bird dropping from the sky to its nest, finding shelter in a circle of mistletoe—and turns off the lights.

**Author's Note:**

> hehehehe footnote time
> 
> +title explanation: [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bird_nest#cite_note-108). apparently victorians used to collect weird stuff like birds' nests, who would have figured
> 
> +for the mythology references:  
> [ _When Loki, the mischief-maker, heard of this, he made a magical spear from this plant (in some later versions, an arrow). He hurried to the place where the gods were indulging in their new pastime of hurling objects at Baldr, which would bounce off without harming him. Loki gave the spear to Baldr's brother, the blind god Höðr, who then inadvertently killed his brother with it (other versions suggest that Loki guided the arrow himself). For this act, Odin and the asynja Rindr gave birth to Váli, who grew to adulthood within a day and slew Höðr._](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%B6%C3%B0r)
> 
> +mistletoe generally?? has white berries instead of red?? which i kind of did not know before writing this fic, so cool--some of it also [grows in japan apparently](https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2007/12/18/reference/mistletoe/)
> 
> +[birbs and mistletoe](https://www.audubon.org/news/mistletoe-whats-it-birds)
> 
> +akechi goro is nearly ~24 in this, akira is 22 or 23
> 
> +what is goro doing during this fic's setting? idk, trying out different jobs and doing a 'way of the househusband' arc essentially!!
> 
> +the general concept i had in mind was that goro was away for like...2-3 years, and then reunited with akira when akira was in his first year at university...
> 
> +you can come find me on my [tumblr](https://qserasera.tumblr.com/) or [twitter](https://twitter.com/mallory_madder)


End file.
